Saudi says it destroyed missile fired at Aramco facility by Houthis

DUBAI (Reuters) – Yemen’s armed Houthi movement said it had launched a ballistic missile toward a Saudi Aramco oil refinery on Friday, but Saudi air defense forces said they had intercepted and destroyed the projectile.

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The Houthis’ al-Masirah TV said Houthi forces had targeted a refinery in Jizan, southwestern Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi state news agency quoted the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen as saying the missile had been heading for residential areas and had been intercepted over Jizan.

“No casualties or damage were recorded when the missile was intercepted,” Colonel Turki al-Maliki said.

Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Houthis say their missile attacks on the kingdom are in retaliation for air raids on Yemen by the Western-backed coalition, which entered Yemen’s war in 2015 to try to restore the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The coalition has carried out thousands of air strikes in Yemen that have hit schools, markets and hospitals, killing hundreds of people – though it says it does not target civilians.